could terminates or renounces it. In December 2019, Citizenship Amendment Act was passed which seemingly eases the path of nationality for persecuted Non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. These provisions were enacted despite of the fact that in October 2018, the government deported 7 Rohingya Muslim refugees and the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the matter. The amendments are claimed to be flawed as these are based on preferential treatment, are arbitrary and discriminatory thus causing various problems. A nationwide peaceful protest against this law continued for more than hundred days and was withdrawn after the lockdown was imposed in wake of COVID 19 in March 2020. However, a closer look at the matrix of the citizenship law shows that it is not only in 2019 but over the years, this is made complicated and chaotic by the bureaucratic machinery. In 2003, when the BJP government was in power, the concept of `illegal immigrant’ is added. Also, a notification was issued on 10th December 2003 by the Government of India to make Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Card) Rules, 2003. As per section 7 of these Rules, it is held that it will be the duty of every head of the family and individuals to act as informants `to assist the officials responsible for the preparation of National Register of Indian Citizens to get himself registered in the Local register of Indian Citizen during the period of initialization’. Section 8 seeks to appoint Registrars at various levels - District, Taluk and Local, and empowered them for `determination of citizenship status of any person or persons’. This exercise of amendment in the law which began in 2003 eradicated the citizenship entitlements of all persons, irrespective of their background and rendered everyone as stateless. This implies that every person is seen as a `Doubtful citizen’. These amendments authorized the bureaucratic state to determine as to who is entitled to enjoy citizenship. The onus of proof is on individuals as the rules allowed the officers appointed by the state to determine the citizenship of an individual on the basis of documents s/he could furnish. These rules were not challenged or revoked by the successive UPA regime which came into power in 2004 General Elections. These amendments altered the discourse of citizenship by eroding the concept of `rights to have rights’. Human rights lost significance as soon as an individual loses his or her political context. These amendments tilted the balance of power in favour of state whereby state is considered as superior which is now empowered to decide the process by which it may choose who can be a citizen. The individuals, hence, become dependent on the mercy of the state to enjoy basic legal protection which they relish as citizens. The amendments excluded and eroded the rights of citizens leaving them to the status of “human and nothing but human” as elaborated by Ardent. The concept of inalienability of human rights is weakened as apart from state, no other institution or authority exists which can guarantee rights. This is a process of dehumanization where ‘modern instruments such as state authority, bureaucratic efficiency, a technology of death and a rational design consisting of abstract plan for the better world’, all are used to otherize and exclude people. Meanwhile, the government also launched the National Population Register (NPR) in 2010 under Sub rule (4) of the Citizenship Rules 2003 which again is against the grain of the law. This is apart March 2020 Shalu Nigam Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3566904